Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
It feels like they cut a lot of planned content including some alternate paths in order to meet the 11/11/11 release date that they committed to a year in advance.

Originally Posted by Maylander
@Fluent and wolfgrimdark
In that case, GTA is the most amazing series for roleplaying ever made. Side quests all over the place, and you can choose to turn down as many as you want.

Sorry if I'm being a bit snide here, but please point out a game which has side quests, but you can't skip them. Or maybe find an RPG that does not have side quests at all.

Like I said - apathy is not the path of a good guy. Apathy is evil, or neutral at best.

So explain to me why a "good guy" would track down the Shrine of Boethiah when the book itself states that a man killed another man in cold blood to gain the favor of Boethiah. Is a good guy going to say "yeah, that's something I want to do! In fact, I'll do it in a good way, and bring down Boethiah instead!" Do you know putting in those types of choices would easily have doubled the amount of content they'd have to make for the game. It just isn't feasible.

Instead they give you the option to use your own moral compass when choosing which things to pursue. I personally will ignore Boethiah's calling, because it sounds like bad news to my character. Maybe when I get curious later on in the game I will check it out, but even then, if the quest is too "evil" I will turn it down. This is also good for replayability. I'd rather be locked out of content as a "good guy", and revisit certain quests as a "bad guy" with another character, and the content will all be fresh and brand new to me.

I don't see the big deal here. You have the choice to follow through on what you want to follow through on. That's the best choice you can make. You choose to serve the Daedric princes and do their bidding, but at what cost to your own morality? You can choose to join the Thieves guild, who are looked upon as scum, and you choose that shady path for your character. There are very real roleplaying consequences for making those choices, and even direct rewards, for example, you get access to the shady, "evil" content. If you don't want to pursue evil content, you don't pursue it. You are always making those types of moral choices in Skyrim.

Again, this is another design decision Bethesda made that is simply different from other approaches, not worse. It's just different. Your choices are more about the actions you take and what things you choose to pursue, rather than doing every quest and having your choices of how to finish the quest. Yet the game even has some of that type of roleplaying as well. I've had quite a few quests where I had a choice of which way I wanted to complete it.

And the reason you have to kill the bad guy in most quests, is because Skyrim is a harsh place, and the outlaws and evil people of Skyrim do not respond to civility, they respond to violence. Marcurio will tell you that when you encounter necromancers, or vampires, bandits, etc. These aren't people to be reasoned with.

But in bottom line terms of "does this game satisfy my role-playing?", I give a resounding YES. What it lacks for options during quests, it gives you options to pursue different storylines in order to shape the overall picture of your character and his morality and personality. The main point I'm trying to make is that Bethesda lays out these storylines which give you the choice of completing them or not and shaping the moral outline of your character. That's the best way I can explain it. It still might be vague though, but I see some people know what I'm trying to say.

I addressed the issue with apathy in my post already so not much sense in repeating it if people are not going to read it.

I can see the point that a game that reacts to decisions can be more immersive in regards to role playing validation. But not everyone needs a game to validate all their decisions to be good at role playing.

As others pointed out there are other ways to role play in a game without always having to have the writers/designers create a clear set of choices … choices that are always limited anyhow and can never cover all the ways that one wants to role play a character.

So one who wishes to RP always has to do some of it on their own. So you do what you can with the tools at hand. This is usually a mix of being able to make decisions in a game based on writers giving you some options or ways to approach it. It can also include deciding what quests you want to do, what weapons/armor you might wear or not (for example some items may be considered holy and your villian may not want to use them) and many other factors.

I prefer to do some of my own thinking in a game instead of always relying on the writers to do all of it for me. Thats why I like these types of sandbox games. When I just want to direct a story (which sometimes I do) I play a Bioware game (for example). I like many games and enjoy them for different reason, even while having a preference for certain types.

Well yes, but what you guys are describing exists in practically every single RPG ever made. If turning down a side quest is the only requirement of C&C, then there's no such thing as an RPG without it.

Why should Skyrim get hailed for something that's a basic feature in every RPG? Might and Magic 9 is possibly the worst RPG I've ever played, but even that had a bunch of side quests to do, skip or turn down.

Please name an RPG where you can't skip or turn down side quests you don't feel like doing.

Originally Posted by Maylander
If turning down a side quest is the only requirement of C&C, then there's no such thing as an RPG without it.

This is really the only part I have been argueing. You are twisting what is being said, at least on what I have been trying to say. I never said it was the only requirement. Just that it is another option the tool box when it comes to RPing.

I totally agree that Skyrim could use more C&C as validated by in-game paths. But it also offers other ways to RP. I also don't think I, personally, ever said Skyrim was the best RP game ever. I love the game and think its great but it certainly has flaws.

But to argue that you can't RP in Skyrim just because it doesn't have a ton of validation for your actions based on alternative paths as provided directly by the writers just doesn't make sense to me. You can RP in Skyrim as a good guy, just like any game, using a variety of tools.

I was under the impression you thought you could only RP if the writers validated your decisions. I am saying that is only one part of the process, a great and important part, but hardly the only one.

As for other games the same principles could apply to various degrees. I was mainly discussing how to role play a good guy in Skyrim or RP in Skyrim in general. Its one of the best RP games IMO only. I don't really care about comparing it to other games in that regard.